Axis & Allies - damowords

Penalty Shoot‐Out
Partisans attack the camp at Siretz,
To avenge this impertinent action
& answer for their grotesque karmic debts,
Every third prisoner faces the gun;
Now name‐by‐name
The men of FC Start
Have playʹd their final game, placed three persons apart.
Kuzmenko is the first to cry
Bull‐clubbʹd to the ground & shot,
Around Klimenko nail‐fists fly,
Til left by bullets to rot,
Shouting, ʺRed sport will never die!ʺ
Trusevich marks his spot,
Stood proud & tall in a goalkeeper green,
Soon blood‐stainʹd in the Babi‐Yar ravine.
The news filterʹd back to the street,
Disheartenʹd Konstantin,
Sick with defeat he went to meet
His mother in an inn,
ʺWorry not,ʺ mused wise Christina, ʺThe final we must win.ʺ
Kiev
February 1943
Colonel Wingate
Burma… fresh bane of the British army,
Catalogue of defeat & disaster,
Receives a maverick visionary,
Determinʹd to restore his landʹs honour;
Daring designs
Regaled with sure surmise,
“Let me break thro the lines & harass their supplies…”
He enlisted common scousers,
La, full of life & gobby,
Alchemied with Nepal’s Ghurkas,
Busked in dusky khaki,
He put them thro their strict paces,
Three months purgatory…
Gen’ral Wavell visits one stormy day,
Inspects them then salutes them on their way.
The vanguard of the re‐conquest
Fords the Chindwin river,
Chain’d to the best, by good lord blest,
Sporting an umbrella,
“You never know when you’ll need one with tropical weather!ʺ
The Raj
February
1943